


flowers from the fire

by ourseparatedcities



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Angst and Humor, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Transfer Window Turmoil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-03
Updated: 2014-09-03
Packaged: 2018-02-16 00:41:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2249490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ourseparatedcities/pseuds/ourseparatedcities
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the same morning that Xabi Alonso signs a contract to play for Bayern Munich, Liverpool and Real Madrid are drawn in the same Champions League group. It's almost enough to make Steven Gerrard feel cynical.</p>
            </blockquote>





	flowers from the fire

**Author's Note:**

> I was too emotionally invested in this quirk of destiny not to write this, so here we are. My first football rpf, so be kind.

The irony of the situation is not lost on him. Steven Gerrard sits at his kitchen counter, hand wrapped around his mug too-hot tea that’s balancing on the razor’s edge of warmth and pain against the lightly chilled skin of his palm. The tv’s on in the background, something he’s become accustomed to doing when all his girls are away, visiting Alex’s mum, and the silence of the empty house grates on him more than it did before, uses the mundane chattering of announcers in some halfhearted attempt to fill the absence. He’s haphazardly paying attention to the happenings on the screen until it’s time for the UCL draw, knows from the way the announcer’s shift in tone, louder and more excited, and the instantaneous tension that fills his body, making his shoulders hunch forward ever so slightly as he leans in.

Bayern Munich’s the first team announced and if he could find some semblance of order in the chaos that is his mind,  he’d be embarrassed that he’s become so invested in a club that he barely paid attention to in the course of just a couple of weeks. They’re easily sorted into Group E. He tries to remind himself that he’s an old dog at the draw, but there’s a vague uneasiness settling in him as he watches Real Madrid be drawn next, sorted into Group B. He’s already busy thinking about his next training session, worrying about finding the perfect niche for Balotelli to fill while allowing Studge and Sterling room to grow, and he focuses on this until Pot 3 is announced, eyes flickering back up the screen immediately.

_“Liverpool FC.”_

His teeth are nagging at his bottom lip, worrying the soft flesh as he tries the force the air in and out his lungs in something resembling a steady beat. It’s not working and somehow, the second right before it’s announced, he knows, sure all the way down in his toes. He knows it just as he knows the ball leaving is foot is going to gently graze the back of the net or how he knew exactly where Xabi was on the pitch without so much as a glance.

_“Group B.”_

There’s something building inside of his chest now, something that feels a bit like laughter, but it’s far heavier and more destructive and it’s not bubbling so much as threatening to burst inside of him in some devastating implosion. But the sound that comes out of his parted lips is somewhere between a gasp and a wry chuckle and it’s nowhere close to capturing the tumult inside of him.

He refuses to acknowledge the way his fingers tremble as he thumbs down through his list of contacts, presses the “talk” button before he can force himself to be logical enough not to make this call. It’s both exhilarating and terrifying to indulge himself in this, such a rarity these days when he’s very careful to feel nothing stronger than happiness and nothing more painful than exhaustion, hovering mechanically on contentment as his default setting.

Three rings and a quiet, “ _Stevie_.”

And for a moment, Stevie is reminded of how exceptionally greedy he is as he wonders how Xabi would answer his phone if he weren’t “Stevie” to him, if they were something contained by labels and simple. If there wasn’t a vague hint of discomfort in Xabi’s voice, a wariness that he finds both familiar and insulting. He wants to know how Xabi would answer the phone in another voice, in another world, in another lifetime. He wants to collect every single insignificant, purposeless, meaningless bit of him until it’s enough to cover up the ache that never quite seems to dissipate.

“Group B,” he mutters.

“ _Yes_ ,” is the soft reply he gets, the single word tinged with resignation. Suddenly, he’s irritated by this, by all of it, but most of all the tiredness dragging at Xabi’s voice, coupled with the lack of anger or passion or something resembling the fighting spirit that he had admired (had fallen irrevocably in love with) in Istanbul.

“Liverpool vs Real Madrid in Group B, Xabs,”  he repeats, hoping for the moniker to drag him out of his practiced calm into something more honest.

_“I saw.”_

There’s no terse edge to Xabi’s words, no lingering resentment, nothing but this emptiness that makes Stevie feel helpless and needy all at once. It doesn’t come as a surprise to him, not now, not after so long, that avoidance is Xabi’s chosen method of coping. The Spaniard’s always seen emotions as more of an inconvenience, or maybe a luxury that he can ill afford. Stevie finds himself envying this skill once again, only this time, he can’t stop himself from hating himself a little for it too.

His nails dig into the tender, yielding flesh of his palm as he tries to maintain his composure.

“Munich or Madrid?” he asks instead, trying to temper the tension even though it feels like a futile effort. He’s aware that it’s not enough, that it won’t be enough, that nothing short of feeling the heated flush of Xabi’s body against his own will jolt them out of this politeness. Only a brush of Xabi’s fingertips along the straight line of his shoulder, just the weight of Stevie’s palm on the curve of his hipbone. The merest of touches is all it takes but nothing else will do. He imagines there’s a metaphor there, about how skin on skin is the only language they share equal fluency in, but he thinks dislikes poetry nearly as much as irony.

_“Munich. Medical and contract earlier. Now apartment search.”_ Barely a complete thought.

He wishes he could hang up, be impetuous and impulsive and just click off until the dial tone drowns out the whine of want inside of his head. But being selfish is another skill (instinct of preservation) Stevie’s never quite mastered. The slow breathing on the other side of the line, across oceans and miles, makes him yearn for the feel of them rather than the sound. His imagination is more burden than balm as he can almost see Xabi leaning against a wall somewhere, in a hotel room or a secluded hallway or an abandoned locker room that will be his own soon. That face he knows, has memorized the contours and moods of, the mouth he’s kissed until smudges of color marred those cheeks. It takes a full minute of this indulgence before he can force himself to exhale heavily and speak again.

“Yeah, alright. Good luck with all that.” Stevie gives him an out, knowing he can do nothing else where Xabi’s concerned.

_“Thanks. We’ll talk later._ ” It’s not a question but Stevie mouths, “yes” before he hears the other end of the line go dead.

He places the phone on the counter face side down, skims a finger along the back in a mockery of a caress.

 

~

 

This time, the phone buzzing is his own and he groans in irritation, slapping a hand down on the pillow beside him on the way to grabbing it blindly. The lights stay off and his eyes remain closed as he mumbles a gruff, “Yeah?” in greeting. Stevie’s pretty sure that whoever’s calling at whatever bleeding hour of night this is doesn’t require, or deserve, false proprieties.

“ _Stevie_.” His body curls instinctively in response, turning on his side as though there is a solid form waiting in the bed there with him, a leg to slide easily between his own, a solid chest to rest a light hand upon. The sleep-warmed sheets cruelly taunt him.

“Wha’ time’s it?” he murmurs, still refusing to open his eyes and find out for himself.

“ _Later. Or late, for you. Early, for me._ ” He can almost hear the shrug that accompanies Xabi’s words and Stevie finds himself rubbing the hint of a smile against the corner of the pillow before he tries to force his lazily awakening brain into action.

“Still in Munich or back home?” There’s a slight pang, the edge dulled after five years and having visited Madrid himself, that the last word draws out of him. Even after nearly spilling a whole glass of wine on Nagore’s perfectly starched tablecloth and seeing a Liverpool kit proudly featured on Jon’s bedroom wall, even after biting bruises along the side of Xabi’s neck up against the stainless steel fridge adorned with pictures of his family, it wounds him that Xabi’s home is a city other than his own.

_“Madrid. I have the press conference today._ ” There’s more than a hint of sadness in his words, underneath the slight nervousness. The worry is something Stevie understands intimately, feels it like a pit of misery every time he exposes a single flaw to the world and fears that this will be it, this is the mistake grand enough to make all the world hate him forever, to wipe out an entire lifetime’s legacy. Surely everything has a downfall.

“You’re a pro,” he attempts, though he’s aware of the hollowness of this sentiment.

“ _Madridistas are not quick to forgive_.” Stevie’s eyes open then, hand falling away from the sheet he’s rumpling up to flick on the light, sending the vague shadows in the room dancing. The night lingers outside the half-parted curtains, the whole of Liverpool still at peace while his stomach wounds itself into knots to keep himself together.

“Neither’re Scousers,” he reminds him, without any malice.

_“You bought Lou a Bayern kit.”_

“She’s me girl, that one, through and through. She lives in ‘em.” It’s an active effort to keep his voice steady and even-toned when Xabi’s words leave him feeling suddenly shaky and bare.

_“Two days after I mentioned Pep’s call.”_

“She liked the blue and red, and I couldn’t bloody well buy her a Barcelona one,” he adds, but his voice is too quiet, too weak to pull off playful banter.

_“Real Madrid’s playing against Liverpool, you know_ ,” Xabi informs him, as though this is a grand secret he’s only just managed to wrangle from some insider.

“I heard rumors, wasn’t sure meself,” he responds drily.

_“We would have been on the same pitch, Stevie._ ” It’s no more than a whisper, but the regret is so crisp, so clear, that Stevie finds himself clutching at the sheets in an effort not to let the sensations rip him apart.

“We would’ve been on opposite sides, Xabs.”

“ _We would’ve been in the same city.”_ He pauses and Stevie’s breath is trapped inside of his throat, his chest aching from the anguish of his longing. “ _In the same bed.”_

“We could have been in the same bed right now if you came back to Liverpool.” There’s absolute silence after he speaks, only the nearly inaudible rhythm of Xabi’s ragged breathing and his own long drags of air. “Is that what you wanted to hear, Xabi?”

_“Yes.”_

And finally, Stevie understands the game they’re playing, what his role is in all of it. Xabi’s expecting (hoping for) bitter recriminations, faint condemnations that accuse him of all his imagined crimes, for wearing any red that is not Liverpool’s own, for leaving when coincidence gift-wraps a chance encounter for them. It’s not Madrid’s forgiveness Xabi’s turned himself inside out agonizing over, it’s his,. If simple inhaling and exhaling weren’t such a struggle, he might have laughed at the absurdity of that.

He’s half a mind to shout at him then, _You daft pillock! Do you think I could stop loving you now? For this? For a single blasted thing?_ He wants to rage at him that the years have brushed past them while they shed their old skins, that Stevie’s soul had a piece of it carved out just to make room for Xabi. That he would love him until the oceans evaporated into nothingness and the fragments of earth upon which they stood melded back into a singular shape, or something equally nonsensical and grandiose. That they could spend the rest of their lives in separated cities and he would know no other way but this, but loving him.

“But you couldn’t come back.”

_“No.”_

“I know.” He wonders if Xabi thinks he’s either too embittered or too foolish to understand, decides he doesn’t want to know after all. “I know you.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Xabi confirms, as though this was a questionable thing. “ _I think maybe we found an apartment._ ”

“You work quick.”

“ _There is a biergarten near. Like pub_ ,” he adds in way of explanation and Stevie grumbles at him irritatedly.

“I know what a biergarten is, mate. They serve that overpriced piss that passes for beer in Germany.”

“ _Also a hotel._ ” Stevie hears the him swallow thickly before continuing in a lower register. “ _Nice hotel. Sturdy railings on balconies._ ”

Stevie feels the instantaneous heat of a blush blooming across his cheeks as  he recalls the last time he was eternally grateful for sturdy railings on a balcony. His head thrown back and the harsh metal stinging the skin of his palm, hips arched forward and Xabi’s hands firmly grasping his thighs, holding him safe even as his mouth obliterated any semblance of sanity.

“That’s...that’s good,” he manages to stammer out.

“ _It is no Liverpool. But it is nice._ ” Stevie closes his eyes again, feels the familiar pinprick of tears threatening as he recognizes the hopefulness in Xabi’s voice. He’s endured this pain himself for long enough from his own perspective, but hearing it reflected back at him the Spaniard amplifies it.

“Nowhere’s like Liverpool,” he begins, the whole of his heart lodged in his throat as he’s overcome by his devotion to both this city and this man, who is not inside of it. It feels somehow wrong that something he loves so dearly, so desperately, can exist outside of it.

“I suppose I could buy Lou another kit. Poor kid spilled grape juice all down the front of hers.” Neither of them points out that there are simpler solutions to such a problem than flying nearly a thousand miles.

_“She is your daughter.”_

“Sod off.” Xabi’s laughter is still as beautifully rich and husky as ever and Stevie falls into it, snickering along.

“ _Maybe we do not need Group B._ ” Stevie feels the exhale start from the tips of his fingers and toes and sigh its way out of his parted lips.

“No. Maybe not.” He reaches over to flick the light back off again, submerging the room into darkness once again. “Try to get some sleep, Xabs.”

“ _I don’t sleep so good, when big things are ahead._ ” Stevie turns onto his side again, resting his palm flat on the bed in the center of the empty space in front of him.

“I know. You’ll be alright,” he trails off for a second, brow furrowed in concentration as he tries to remember. “...ca-ree-no.”

There’s a sharp, surprised bark on the other side of the phone, quickly muffled in some bit of fabric before Xabi’s voice sounds out.

_“Almost. You’ll be a Spaniard yet.”_

“It’s a shite language anyway, ya wanker.”

“ _Dulces sueños, cariño._ ” It sounds like the touch of Xabi’s lips against his earlobes and all Stevie really needs is the distinct fondness in the words.

“Yeah, you too.”

He returns the phone to the nightside table and ever so lightly skims his hand over the cool bedsheets in a single long stroke. He feels utterly ridiculous doing it, but he knows somewhere between Stevie’s house and his, Xabi is in the right side of his own bed, the curved line of his back facing Stevie’s direction. It’s silly and fanciful, but he finds himself imagining Xabi turning into the touch, falling asleep as easily as he used to underneath him, and it erases all fleeting feelings of foolishness.

Maybe he doesn’t hate poetry after all.

 

~

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this. It's really a long-winded exercise in coping with the fact that these two aren't married and sitting on an absurdly expensive couch somewhere together, wearing matching jumpers and yelling at Carra on on Sky Sports. 
> 
> A very sincere thanks to my friend Julia. You're my favorite pottery critic ;)


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